Meal plans and apps

So I’m definitely not blogging as much as I was when I was on maternity leave. If I get one a week, I’m happy. Let’s not forget, this mamma works more than full time, has a baby, 4 dogs and tries to workout 4-5 days a week. My husbands work has him gone about 14 hours a day so there is no “have your husband watch B while you do blah-blah-blah”. My days are slammed.

So this quiet (knock on wood) Sunday afternoon seemed like the perfect time to write.

So I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself. On top of everything, I have managed to take up jogging. On the days that I CrossFit in the morning, those are the days I jog and it works perfectly. After I drop B off at daycare at 8am there is no point going home before class at 9am so I head to the box early and run before class starts. Or if it’s raining too hard I’ll row. Quite honestly, it’s kicking my ass but man I feel good later! And incredibly hungry!

So hungry that THIS happens….

……4 block post running/WOD meal. A pile of sauteed green beans with red pepper flakes topped with over easy eggs and a piece of bread. The bread was a requirement to sop up all that yolk.

Since I have taken up running, I want to be able to take B with me so I am in the market for a Bob jogging stroller. Been looking on Craigslist because I have been told but several people that a Bob on Craigslist is better than buying a cheap one new. Sold. Found a few and just waiting for a response. Hopefully this time next week I’ll be jogging with B!

In the past few weeks I have started using the My Fitness Pal (MFP) more because I found out that you can change your macros to fit your diet. Before it was telling me to eat a ridiculously low amount of food a day. Just reading that number made me hungry! So I calculated my “estimated daily energy expenditure” on Eat To Perform (www.eattoperform.com) and then plugged those numbers into MFP. I’m at around 2600 a day. (Take THAT Weight Watchers!!).

I am still learning how to use it so I can’t provide much guidance at the moment. Zone and ETP have me eating different amounts of food at different percentages. Zone is 40/30/30 while EPT has me at 40/34/26. Basically this means 40% of my calories comes from carbs, 30% from fat and 30% from protein. Or in the case of ETP 40% from carbs, 34% from fat and 26% from protein. I’ll be meeting with my box’s nutritionist soon to discuss. I’ll admit it, I don’t have the answer for everything!

I am pretty much maintaining right now as far as weight goes but I’m getting stronger and all this running is making me a little faster. I can’t tell too much of a difference in my clothes….but I haven’t exactly gone through my closet yet. Again, breastfeeding lady here so I can’t wear much of anything right now.

So while I might not have the abs I had before, I still must say I’m making good progress. Getting back into my “skinny” jeans this fall isn’t really on the top of my list right now.

I feel your pain! Starting out can be a little difficult but it gets better. I actually started out on the Zone diet to learn about portion sizes and they also have some meal ideas: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/cfjissue21_May04.pdf . These meals are not elaborate by any means, but they will help get you started.

It also helps when I make single serving meals or make each food separate of each other. For example I will roast sweet potatoes in EVOO rather than making a hash out of sweet potatoes, onions and several other ingredients. With the hash, I wouldn’t know how much of each ingredient I was eating. Make sense? 🙂

Once you start playing around with the recipes, try plugging your numbers into the My Fitness Pal app if you can and see where you are. It will tell you what your percentages are compared to where you should be. If you see your macros are getting too high, then scale back.

But most of all, have fun with it! Play around with flavors! Imagine my surprise when one day I felt like putting almond butter and bacon on my toast. It was DELICIOUS!